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Is breakfast 'the most important meal of the day' or is this another myth?

This little beast interacts with other parts of the brain to set your circadian rythms. It is expecting to see light when you wake up and then releases a chain of events to set your metabolism up for the day ahead. If you eat first thing in the morning, your SCN sets in motion a chain of gastric events that leads to proper release of hormones, like ghrelin, leptin, insulin, HGH, etc... If all these things are happening in the right sequence, when you finally go to bed at night, the SCN starts accounting for all the calories you took in, the energy you expended and can ramp up heat production while you sleep to burn off excess calories as free heat.

If you just eat whenever, these cycles get out-of-whack and we don't operate as efficient as we should.

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My main meal of the day is breakfast, I have more time in the morning than at any other time of day and enjoy preparing and cooking a feast. I tend to have a huge plateful of roasted veg and a steak or lamb chops etc. I really enjoy it and look forward to it, I never used to eat breakfast.. ever! Sometimes breakfast is the only time I eat and I will then fast until the next days breakfast, other days when I feel hungry I might have another meal mid afternoon, usually hard boiled eggs and some fruit. I don't like to eat later on, unless I am going out for dinner or have someone visiting for dinner. For some reason if I eat at around 7pm or later I don't sleep as well. This is why this woe is so great, it can be tailored to suit the individual. If I am not hungry when I get up I don't eat, I wait until I feel I need something!

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The timing of meals has been suggested to play an important role in circadian regulation and metabolic health. Three meals a day is a well-established human feeding habit, which in today's lifestyle may or may not be followed. The aim of this study was to test whether the absence of breakfast or supper significantly affects the circadian system and physiological function. The authors developed a rat model for their daily three meals study, whereby animals were divided into three groups (three meals, TM; no first meal, NF; no last meal, NL) all fed with the same amount of food every day. Rats in the NF group displayed significantly decreased levels of plasma triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and glucose in the activity phase, accompanied by delayed circadian phases of hepatic peripheral clock and downstream metabolic genes. Rats in the NL group showed lower concentration of plasma TC, HDL-C, and glucose in the rest phase, plus reduced adipose tissue accumulation and body weight gain. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis indicated an attenuated rhythm in the food-entraining pathway, including down-regulated expression of the clock genes Per2, Bmal1, and Rev-erbα, which may further contribute to the delayed and decreased expression of FAS in lipogenesis in this group. Our findings are consistent with the conclusion that the daily first meal determines the circadian phasing of peripheral clocks, such as in the liver, whereas the daily last meal tightly couples to lipid metabolism and adipose tissue accumulation, which suggests differential physiological effects and function of the respective meal timings.

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According to Cicero only slaves and farm animals were fed a regular "breakfast" among the Greeks and the early Romans - the higher classes of free citizens ate a large composite meal in the evening. The breakfast as we know it is a modern invention...

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

- Schopenhauer

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And this:Circadian Timing of Food Intake Contributes to Weight Gain - Arble - 2012 - Obesity - Wiley Online Library
The present results indicate that a better understanding of the role of the circadian system in weight regulation could have important implications for combating the obesity epidemic facing the human population today. Once gained, losing body weight by controlling energy intake through dieting and/or energy expenditure has proven to be difficult over a prolonged period of time, making significant and sustained weight loss challenging (14). A preventive strategy based on behavior modification (e.g., the timing of food intake), possibly without a significant change in caloric intake or physical activity, could be a critical element needed to slow the ever-increasing incidence of obesity and associated cardiometabolic disorders facing the world today.

According to Cicero only slaves and farm animals were fed a regular "breakfast" among the Greeks and the early Romans - the higher classes of free citizens ate a large composite meal in the evening. The breakfast as we know it is a modern invention...

That seems like those doing the work needed the nutrition. The others were waiting around for someone to either fix them dinner or be dinner

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According to Cicero only slaves and farm animals were fed a regular "breakfast" among the Greeks and the early Romans - the higher classes of free citizens ate a large composite meal in the evening. The breakfast as we know it is a modern invention...

OR, breakfast at dawn is the way it should be, based on our biology, but when we became civilized we changed the way we ate.

It seems to me most daytime animals feed early in the morning, no reason to think modern homo would be different. There is a drug called Cycloset for T2 Diabetes that must be taken immediately upon rising, this drug adjusts the SCN. SCN problems are a big problem in T2D.

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It seems to me most daytime animals feed early in the morning, no reason to think modern homo would be different. There is a drug called Cycloset for T2 Diabetes that must be taken immediately upon rising, this drug adjusts the SCN. SCN problems are a big problem in T2D.

This makes me wonder about the correlation between excessive sleep and diabetes. Does sleeping too much assist the onset of diabetes, or does having diabetes make a person sleep a lot more? I'm inclined to think the latter.

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OR, breakfast at dawn is the way it should be, based on our biology, but when we became civilized we changed the way we ate.

I don't believe that Grok ate an early breakfast, probably did he stuff himself with a huge meal of meat and organs at night and thereafter dancing beside the fire to burn some energy and sleeping until late the day after. Then he went to hunt down something!

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OR, breakfast at dawn is the way it should be, based on our biology, but when we became civilized we changed the way we ate.

It seems to me most daytime animals feed early in the morning, no reason to think modern homo would be different. There is a drug called Cycloset for T2 Diabetes that must be taken immediately upon rising, this drug adjusts the SCN. SCN problems are a big problem in T2D.

I totally agree with the infos you posted tatertot.

My circadian rhythm is all messed up, mostly because of hormonal problems (hypopituitarism) causing neurotransmitters and adrenals problems, but IFing everyday in the morning made it much worse in terms of insomnia, wrong time for cortisol secretion and night time hunger.
It's been a week now that I'm getting back on a schedule where I eat breakfast after 30 minutes of rising (yes I'm following what Jack Kruse advices, even if the man himself is a bit strange the infos he gives are very interesting and shared with many prominent doctors in these domains) and I'm slowly feeling better.
Getting up at 7:30 AM now, while a week ago it was more like 11 AM or even noon, huge step ;D

Young self-caring Paleo-eater from France.
(So please forgive the strange way I tend to express myself in your beautiful language )

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funny thing is, i can't eat for the first hour that I'm awake anyway (without getting an upset stomach), and by the time I could eat, I was usually at school, and wasn't allowed to eat until lunch time. Which meant I was IFing. LOL

I would then "break fast" at lunch time, and then have a snack around 3, and then dinner around 6.

When we started IFing about a month ago now, we were working on a 6 hr window between 11 and 7. Trouble was, with my work schedule, I was eating between 10:30 am and 8, or throwing food down my throat in 15 minutes between 11:00 and 11:15 (which was not fun or comfortable) because I teach yoga class at 11:15. Then, I would eat again around 2, and then wait until dinner which was at home, but we weren't getting home until 7 and I would eat at 7:30 until 8. So obviously our window was pushed out.

My Dh doesn't have these constraints, but today I opted to push back and only eat after 2 and until 7. It's working well so far, and breakfast is very yummy: fried eggs (in butter), steamed veggies, olive oil. I had that at 2. Then at 5:30, we had fish with a curry sauce and some asparagus with olive oil. I had a bit of dark chocolate.

I'm currently drinking only 3 cups of tea per day, and then water otherwise. I tend to have my tea between 9 am and 2 pm.